The protests come in response to the College Board’s decision to introduce €450 supplemental exam fee

Students have protested College’s introduction of supplemental fees by targeting College’s Global Relations Facebook account. Since 7.30pm today, students have been rating the page with one star, reducing its overall score to 1.5 stars. The page currently has 240 one star reviews, in contrast to 27 five star views.

The online protest follows today’s action outside a meeting of the College Finance Committee, caused by the decision to implement a flat fee of €450 for supplemental exams, as well as the proposed increase in the cost of on-campus accommodation to €240 a week.

President-elect of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) Shane De Rís gave the page a one star review, commenting: “College is great at getting people to come here then completely ignoring their needs and screwing them over once there. Its time this stopped, it’s time for students to stand and to take back Trinity.”

Speaking to Trinity News, TCDSU President Kevin Keane said that action “strikes right at the heart of Trinity’s priorities”. He said that College has placed far too much focus on the needs of tourists. “[F]ar more care and attention has been spent on the visitor experience than that of the student.”

Keane also said that College has “prioritised the recruitment of international students with no regard whatsoever to what happens when they actually arrive to college.”

He continued: “By crippling their platforms to communicate with these two groups, the Take Back Trinity movement is living its slogan – it is putting the students back at the top of pile, and reminding the powers that be that this is a place of learning, not a corporate, commercial campus.”